"Some Random Observations on Historicon 2016" Topic

The positives:

1. Lots of games. I was told there were close to 500 games being put on, plus tournaments. I had a game ticket with a number of 556, so I suspect it might have been higher.

2. Attendance appeared to be about the same, but I heard that it was slightly up. So probably about 2400 – 2500 attendees. A good crowd. I ran into a large number of players from the northeast, the mid-Atlantic, the south, the Midwest, and Colorado. There were at least two from Hawaii. I did not meet anyone from the west coast.

3. There were many gamers who travelled from outside the U.S., including Canada, Great Britain (I gamed with four different players from England), Australia, and I heard there was one from Argentina.

4. I was able to play in 12 games. I was never turned away from a game if I did not have a ticket. I never saw a gamemaster turn away someone wanting to play.

5. There were a huge number of Napoleonic games being played this year. I played in five, using four different sets of rules.

6. French and Indian War skirmish games are still popular.

7. The facilities were find. No problems with the air conditioning. Lots of chairs available. There was usually enough space between the tables that you were not bumping into players at other tables.

8. I did not see any problems finding a parking space.

9. There appeared to be every fast food restaurant and chain restaurant within a five minute drive. There was a Wegman's supermarket with it food court about a seven minute walk from the convention center.

10. The number of vendors was up. No noticeable absences from previous couple of years.

11. Signing up for additional games. There was usually only a very short wait, if any, at the table where you could sign up for additional games.

A few minor problems:

1. Registration on Wednesday night was slow, especially with those who had pre-registered. For some reason there was a bottleneck with those whose last names began with A – L. However, once the Convention Director realized that there was a problem, he took steps to correct it and the line moved along quickly.

2. Noise level was high. . . but I found it high at the Lancaster Host also. I guess this is a good thing, because it meant there were a lot of people playing the games and having a good time.

My First time at Historicon in the new location.

I would agree with most of the points above.

The gentlemen from Argentina, nice guy btw, lives in the US. Unless you met another guy from Argentina. Also, a very good player!

Registration seemed to be much smoother than previous Cold Wars and Fall In events. Seems like this is always blamed on slow internet connection at all the conventions? No idea if it's true, but I thought the staff did a good job getting everyone organized. Even as a GM I usually have badge issues at the cons, but this time it was smooth and took less than 2 minutes to pick up my badge.

Noise level in the main hall was definitely an issue… like being in the Distlefink at peak hours, all the time. The rest of the rooms were very quiet and a little cooler, but not as well lit. So a small trade off there.

The Hobby University setups looked great.

The front half of the main hall was a little crowded. INMHO They tried to cram a few too many games onto the limited carpet area and should have probably spread out into the empty space which was not carpeted. this way they could have had some bigger traffic isles. But there was enough space between games, but a couple traffic isles wuld have been nice.

Plenty of food options nearby and in the hall too.

AC worked ok, better outside the main hall in the side rooms.

Chairs… Two varieties as mentioned in other posts. The heavy duty plastic which were reasonable and not too uncomfortable and the "take a chance on collapse, sit at your own risk" variety…. Generally speaking you could find one of the better chairs to use.

The organizers did a great job and should be thanked heartily for putting on the convention!

Hi! Everything was awesome!
Actually we were 3 wargamers from Argentina.
Francisco, Alvaro and myself.
Francisco & Alvaro live in the US, but i came specifically for historicon.
Great games, great place, nice people!

Best regards,

Diego

Hey, Diego ! Welcome, and glad you enjoyed the
convention ! Hope your travel was pleasant and
safe !

And Diego is a great player. He kicked my back side in a game.

Great selection of games and I too was never turned away. On the contrary, GMs attempted to shanghai me as I walked past.

I pre-registered this year. Walked in the door, right up to a window, showed my ID and was handed my badge and t-shirt. Piece of cake.

Bought way too much unpainted lead in the dealer area and flea market. Had trouble hiding it all from the wife when I got home. I wanted a few more specific items from the dealer area, but the venders sold out before I got there.

Noise in the main hall was the major problem. We had to shout across the table in a couple of games. My head still hurts and ears ringing. That alone may cause me to rethink attending next year. I suggest the center do what quite a few other centers do: carpet the whole floor and hang rows of carpeting from the ceiling. It makes a big difference with the noise.

I think the Argentines are ringers… Alvaro was one of the quickest I have ever seen at picking up strategy in a new rule system!

Well it was our first time at Historicon as well.
We had been to Cold Wars in 2012 to run Maipu but this was our first Historicon… we had a blast and we are probably doing it again next year..

Francisco

I think that the Historicon volunteer staff do an excellent job of staging a convention with 500+ games and 2,400+ attendees every year. When you stop to think about all the things that have to go on behind the scenes to pull this convention off, it is amazing that we even have a convention at all.

As a gamer, I don't care all that much whether Historicon is in Virginia or Pennsylvania or points in between. As long as there are games, and the quality of the games seems to get better each time I go, then I am a happy attendee.

As a dealer, I wish that the Sunday morning requirement was eliminated so that I can start my 1,200 mile drive home early in the morning rather than at 1PM.

I have had the pleasure of gaming with Francisco and Alvaro many times away from H'Con and can confirm they are a "quick study" and super nice guys.

I agree with everything written above and think the gentlemen provided an accurate assessment of Historicon.

The noise is still bad and chairs are bad. The former is something to put up with, but the latter may become a legal liability. One of my opponents had his chair collapse from underneath him and narrowly escaped cracking his head on the concrete floor.

The registration is as bad as with any of the HMGS a conventions. I am lucky to know the dates which I can take off and pre-register. That took seconds.

The weather was bad…….for this wimpy Canadian who had to shlep a lot of stuff. I thought the AC worked well considering the conditions.

That's the full litany of complaints and they were not enough to totally detract from my enjoyment of Historicon. Now, if more of my friends would bother to show up……..

Will Call should make a big difference. I registered the night before and got my badge in about 3 mins.

My compliments to the Historicon staff for staging a great event. I had a great time and really enjoyed running 9 games over the three days.

I'm looking forward to next year!

A good con for me. Played two games and helped run 4. Vendors looked busy most of the time, and I definitely helped the bottom line of a couple!

Hey, Diego, hope you had a good time at the Battlegroup Kursk game---you helped move the game along nicely! Hope to see you at another HCON.

Mike

1. Registration on Wednesday night was slow, especially with those who had pre-registered. For some reason there was a bottleneck with those whose last names began with A – L. However, once the Convention Director realized that there was a problem, he took steps to correct it and the line moved along quickly.

The problem was that a much higher percentage of the A-L's showed up Wednesday evening than of the M-Z's. Not anybody' fault. No way it could have been predicted.

After reading all the horror stories about long waits for registration, I went in and got in the back of a long line. About a minute later, I found out it was the line for the vendor hall! Went to the registration desk,where there was one person in front of me. Admittedly,this was about 11:45 Thursday. There were even flea market tables left.